The Dangerous Jacob Wilde. Sandra Marton

sisters were shrieking and bouncing like yo-yo’s. Caleb and Travis were laughing. The bunch of them exploded onto the porch, and the crowd moved in behind them for the show.

      Addison sighed with resignation. Too late. She was stuck here, at least until she shook the hero’s hand, or maybe he’d be so engulfed by the crowd that she’d be able to slip out without anybody noticing….

      And then Jacob Wilde stepped into the room.

      The breath caught in her throat.

      She had expected him to be good-looking.

      He wasn’t.

      He was—there was no other word for it—beautiful.

      Tall. Broad-shouldered. A long, tautly muscled body, strong and straight in a uniform that bristled with ribbons. His hair was the color of midnight.

      Corny, all of it, but true.

      He had a face a sculptor might have chiseled.

      A sculptor with a cruel sense of irony.

      Because Jacob Wilde’s face was perfect….

      Except for the black patch over one eye, and the angry, ridged flesh that stretched across the arch of his cheek beneath it.